


Candy, Blood and the Time that's Left

by Hecate



Category: Daybreakers (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 22:37:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/pseuds/Hecate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sweet. I forgot that food could taste sweet." - Alison and Frankie, after everything. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Candy, Blood and the Time that's Left

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine, no money made.

Hard candy might be a goner when the apocalypse finally hits, but it survived vampires just fine. That doesn't really surprise Frankie. What surprises him is the taste.

"I forgot that it could be like that," he says, and Alison raises an eyebrow.

"What?" she asks.

"Sweet. I forgot that food could taste sweet."

She laughs sharply, reaching out for the bag and stealing a piece for herself. "That's not food."

He shrugs, licking his lips. "It's still sweet."

"Won't feed us."

Another shrug, a nod. "Yeah, well, I'm kinda used to being hungry these days. Vampires, humans; different species, same shit."

She cocks her head then, neck laid bare, and for a few seconds he remembers his teeth piercing her skin. He can still see the wounds he left behind, both still angry and red, and he wonders how long it will take them to heal now that she's human again. Now that they both are.

He can still taste her.

She tasted of salt and fear and anger, she tasted of life. He wonders how she would taste now, her blood poison for vampires, an antidote none of them wants. But he knows the answer to that; he remembers the quick taste of Elvis in his mouth. There was nothing different about it, nothing to warn him. He is still disappointed by that.

Frankie bites down on the candy in his mouth to distract himself, tastes sweetness everywhere, and suddenly thinks of Alison's lips beneath his. He shakes his head. He killed her, he has no right to her new life now, even if he was the one to drag her out of the cell her father put her in. Even if she sits here with him, eating candy, waiting for his brother to return.

And yet...

"I want to die human," Alison suddenly says into the silence. He wants to agree, thinks back to the last years, and can't. He's still bad at being human, and he's only realizing that being good at being a vampire might not mean all that much. Not with the sun still rising every day, not with the subsiders bursting into flames. Not when humans are the ones making candy and sitting with their enemies even after something close to murder.

"I'm sorry," he says. He hasn't said it before. It's time. Alison looks at him, confused, so he continues. "For killing you."

"You turned me." Her voice is careful, controlled, and he wonders how much she still hates him for that, how much it costs her to sit here with him. How much it costs his brother to look at him and still love him.

"Same thing. Almost."

"Not really. There's no return from death. True death, I mean."

"I didn't know you could become human once again, not back when I bit you." He shouldn't be honest about this, he thinks, but he needs to be. There’ve been enough lies in his life ever since he turned, every step and every breath he pretended to take a mockery of what he used to be. What he is again.

"No. But you were the one changing me back. We're even. Kind of."

"Only not really?"

"Yeah." She smiles, tries to, and he almost touches her. Instead, he nods. She takes another candy. Her tongue is stained with blue.

"Do you miss it?" she suddenly asks, and he wishes he didn't know what she means. But he does.

Frankie nods and hates his own honesty. "Yeah. I was a good vampire." Too good, really, a hunter and killer. Until... until Allison. Until she refused to be one of them, tried to poison herself. Until she was ready to die a second time just so she could be dead. She made him remember being human in ways his brother never could.

He used to have a life. Then he had a death, one that wasn't even real. It was more than enough back then. Now... he has his brother and Allison and the rebels. A bunch of people hating him, even more distrusting him, and a fight he's not sure they can win. He can't bring himself to think of it as a good deal, not even with candy in his mouth and Alison on his side.

But it's not a bad deal either. Mostly, it just _is_. He doesn't know how to explain that to her. So he doesn't, becomes silent again, and watches the daylight filling up the space all around them. He thinks it wasn't this bright before he died. But he could be wrong. He usually is.

Frankie only realizes that Alison’s moved closer when they're already shoulder to shoulder, her arm against his. It's warm, nearly too warm, and he looks at her with an eyebrow raised in question.

"You were sulking," she says. "Like Dracula. It's not attractive." 

He laughs. It's almost easy to do so with her now.

"There are good things about being human, you know?"

He nods.

"Candy," she offers. "Sunshine. No lethal sunburn. Growing up. Change. Children."

"Sex," he finally adds. 

It's her turn to laugh. "Yeah, definitely."

"There's just not much of all that around these days. Well, it is. But it's ... different." _Hard_ , he doesn't say. Deadly. Hunger and starvation and vampires after them. People who don't want to become human again. The end of it all is coming, but it's coming slowly and sometimes he's not sure he can wait for it. Sometimes he wants easy and fast and the night back again.

"Things will change," she says, determined and fierce. "We will get this world back."

"And then?"

She shrugs. "We can think of that later. We'll have time."

"Maybe not enough."

"Yes. But that’s the good thing about being human, isn't it? There's not enough time."

He frowns. She smiles.

"You have all the time in the world to do whatever you want when you're a vampire. But none of you did. Because you had to live with the consequences of everything for eternity instead of just a human life. Grief and regret and being afraid of what you want—that all lasts so much longer when you have so much time. Without it, life is too short to deny yourself all the stupid things you want to do."

She's even closer now, her breath against his neck as she looks at him, her eyes bright with something strangely familiar. _Hunger_ , he realizes, and his stomach goes tight with expectations he isn't ready for.

When she leans in, it's almost too much, a human this close to him, the memories of what it meant and what it used to mean before that. What it means again. He holds still then, closes his eyes. Breathes until her lips meet his and he can feel her skin.

She tastes of life and candy. He almost expected that.


End file.
